Why International Women’s Day is ideologically unsound.

Ladies, put your bras back on. There’s no need to start a fire. Today is a terrible celebration of so-called female empowerment.

                I will outline now – I am not a feminist. I am not blind in this opinion, I have spent the past six years studying sociology and find the majority of feminist work nothing more than glorified moaning, or tenuous to social issues at best. Yet there are some issues that irk my inner Betty Friedan and get my ovaries all a-tinglin’. International Women’s Day is one of these things.

                Why are we celebrating biology? Is it to send hearty congratulations to all those tenacious sperms with X-chromosomes, who flounced their Y-rivals in a race-against-time swim through the cervix? Um, no, no it’s not. It’s just celebrating the fact that people appreciate and respect women and the equality achieved by those before us. Well done, society.

                Of course, the historical achievements of those fighting for the equality of women throughout history are highly commendable, and I am grateful for everything that my foremothers did to ensure I can live the happy and unrepressed life I do today. However, I feel I celebrate these things every day, I do not take for granted that I can go to university or can choose my profession at will. It is now part of the norm of society, and we are constantly reminded of these things when a woman is accused of heresy if she decides not to vote, as people died for her to be able to.
               
                However, I find it inescapable that today’s celebrations are somewhat condescending. I do not need to celebrate my femininity. I feel today is nothing more than a reification of the patro-normative view of society. In this world, ‘male’ is the normal, the aspired, the alpha. Being female, therefore, is as Simone DeBeauvoir said, the second sex. By celebrating this day of womanhood, we are further widening the gap between ‘male’ and ‘female’. Instead of seeing gender differences as extraneous, this is deepening the dichotomy. What would be a greater step in the advancement of females in society and closer equality would be a sense of nonchalance towards this divide.

                It would be somewhat churlish to dismiss the fact that our genders are socially constructed. Our sex may be biological facts, but what it means to be a ‘woman’ in a modernised Western society is defined by society. We created this difference between male and females, and thus feel it appropriate to reinstate this divide as frequently as possible. Not just today, but in how we dress and act, and in the simplicity of speech. I am not calling for a re-design in the definitions of male and female, all I wish is that we should have no need of furthering this divide by having a day distinguishing one gender as different. We are a society who should co-exist without this reinforcement of our differences. Our equality as people, not as genders, speaks enough unannounced.

EDIT – I’m including the comments I’ve received after posting this on Facebook, as I realise this is quite an inflammatory piece and I’ve been proved wrong in a few places. So really it makes sense to put it on here…. (My comments are in bold)

Alanna: Yeah why think about women..they only die unnecessarily every minute in childbirth. Big deal..let’s just not talk about it

Cal :Agreed Alanna.

Anna: I admit that I’m looking at this from an entirely westernised perspective, and somewhat foolishly neglecting the International aspect. However I am commenting on the presence of IWD on Twitter etc who also seem to ignore that side. Clearly it’s an awareness-raising campaign gone awry.

Ben: Can’t we all just agree that the world is a better place than it was 50 years ago…?

Becky: Hmm interesting point!! But in this case, are you against all days of this nature eg. Gay pride, black history month etc?? Just curious!

Alanna: I think then perhaps your anger has been misdirected, and should be towards the lack of understanding of the day, rather than the day itself.

Karren: I get your point Anna but it is foolish not to acknowledge the obvious differences between men and women. I want to celebrate difference. All difference. That’s not to say I don’t feel equal, I do, slightly better if I’m honest.

Ben: I’m glad you feel superior, Karren.

Anna: Becky – My feelings on this point are undecided, homophobia and racism are much more prominent in today’s society (I feel) than sexism. I think these cases are more worthy, but again, there is a danger of crossing into realms of heteronormativity with Gay Pride festivals. But if it is raising awareness that is the centre of the campaign, both in the intentions of the organisers and the perception of society, then yeah, go for it.

Alanna – Maybe my anger has been misdirected, but even if my point is less worthy and noble than yours, I’d still like to voice my opinion on certain matters that appear more trivial.

Karren (although this feels extraordinarily odd to use your first name!) – Yeah, you’re right, and a point I probably severely overlooked. I think that’s a problem of writing a blog in a rant, it’s a tunnel-vision approach where one’s zealous spiel and eagerness to post results in a small-minded text without fully exploring all possibilities. Maybe the wish to make a slightly controversial statement blinds one from seeing the whole picture…..

Either way guys, without meaning to sound like a complete arse I really appreciate your criticism. Having your close-mindedness questioned helps to get a better understanding of these things. Ultimately my phenomenological perspective of reality got in the way of more important matters that I shouldn’t have discounted…..so, thanks.

From ‘Glad To Be Gay’ to ‘Born This Way’: Why the protest song died.

People often argue that the youth today are apolitical, apathetic and all-round gobshites that don’t give a shit. Well, if they are, who can blame them.

To look at popular music now and popular music 40 or 50 years ago and you get a very different state of affairs. Rather than songs about being ‘in the club’ or ‘getting slizzard’, we have a generation of music categorised by resisting The System.

Take, for example, The Tom Robinson Band anthem Glad To Be Gay. Released in 1978, over ten years after the decriminalisation of male homosexual acts, it was a scathing attack on the police, media and society for refusing to accept gayness.

“So sit back and watch as they close all our clubs 
Arrest us for meeting and raid all our pubs
Make sure your boyfriend’s at least 21
So only your friends and your brothers get done
Lie to your workmates, lie to your folks
Put down the queens and tell anti-queer jokes
Gay Lib’s ridiculous, join their laughter
‘The buggers are legal now, what more are they after?’”

I would struggle to recall a song in recent years with that level of venom. The closest we’ve got to defending gay rights is Lady Gaga, who in Born This Way states rather cryptically that it doesn’t matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M. She may also argue that a different lover is not a sin, but this is still an incredibly ambiguous line. Yes it’s obviously about being gay, but she doesn’t outrightly state that it’s okay to be gay until a revamp of a chorus towards the end.

In all fairness, why should she. This is 2011. When the openly-gay Robinson wrote Glad To be Gay in 1976, things were very, very different. Homophobia was still rife, and it was still illegal to have gay sex with an under-21, five years more than it is for straights. As Robinson states in the second verse, tabloid papers demonised homosexuality a damn sight more than Jan Moir did over Stephen Gateley. Homophobia in Britain today is the attitude of a minority, hence why it’s fine for Gaga to be subtle.

A key difference in this approach to gay liberation in protest songs is a cultural shift. No longer is there a need to right a wrong in society, instead Gaga preaches to her ‘little Monsters’ the importance of self-acceptance and embracing one’s identity as an outsider. This creation of a subculture by Gaga of freaks, gays and Monsters is a coping mechanism that still stands as strong as Robinson’s words.

It is due to this social change from yesteryear that the protest song has diminished. Compared to the racial and gender struggles that our parents fought against and sung about, we don’t have the same massive inequalities in society for people to protest about.

Er, actually, hang on a minute. I seem to be forgetting two vital issues within society, which maybe our forefathers would have written a more potent song or two about.

Iraq and Afghanistan. Two wars, both waged by Western superpowers in countries far away in an attempt to enforce their democratic system. Totally not similar to anything that’s happened before.  At all.

To say that people cared more in generations past is to look back on the past is to only tell half the story. There is a reason for apathy, and it seems the reason is that youth culture forgot to give a shit.

In all fairness, resistance through music is only mainstream if record producers realise they’re going to make a profit. For instance, the signing of Jefferson Airplane to a major record label only happened because the music fatcats saw the popularity of the counter-culture in San Francisco and decided to cash in.

It is an unfortunate truth that any music with a political message is never picked up in the charts. Sure, Black Eyed Peas’s Where Is The Love? was a massive hit, but only stood against 9/11, and not about the wars in its aftermath. One could point to Boom!  by System of a Down, with lyrics deeply criticising the US and UK’s involvement in Iraq as an outstanding example of telling the Man what for. In fact, the only outright musical statement against the Iraq war was made by George Michael in his video, both lyrically and extraordinarily visually, for Walk the Dog.

How could George Michael get away with this in the eyes of the nervous, money-hungry music monopolies? Because he is British. The prevalent patriotism following 9/11 in America made it incredibly difficult for musicians to criticise the Bush administration and the Iraq War. A country united by the destruction and grief caused by extremists meant that those who spoke against the wars would be demonised, or worse, lose money. Take, for example, the Dixie Chicks. Before 2003, they were one of America’s biggest bands. Whilst on stage at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq, they proclaimed that they were ashamed that George W Bush came from Texas. Not a song about it, just a statement on stage. Cue fans and radio stations boycotting their music, their releases flopping, and throw a few death threats in for good measure.

The ownership and capitalist interests of music corporations means that songs that attack the status quo are discouraged, as no mainstream label wants to fund a wrong’un. Instead, the protest song is doomed to live out the rest of its days as nothing more than a viral sensation. The notorious Andrew Lansley Rapagainst the Tory minister’s proposed health cuts is more about amount of YouTube hits than Hit 40 UK, and was even chanted at recent protests against the government. It’s witty, incredibly sharp and the amount of political jargon that is rapped out is quite extraordinary.

It may seem like the only option for musical resistance in the West may be through viral protests, but surely a better world would be one where protest songs didn’t exist. As Lady Gaga herself said in a YouTube video directed at President Obama, “my wish for the future is that I won’t have to write protest songs”. No problems, no protest. Here’s to hoping that protest songs die out peacefully, rather than lost to apathy and fearful music conglomerates.

Mutya Buena vs Postmodernism – A phrase I never thought I’d write.

I can still remember the first time I heard Sugababes. It was in the year 2000 (gosh, this realisation makes me feel old…) on CD:UK, and they were previewing their new single ‘Overload’. Which, to this day, still remains a banging tune. There was something about Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan that set them apart. They weren’t dolled up, they weren’t hip-hop, they were three teenagers just as themselves, singing a song.

Shortly after the success of a few singles, Siobhan decided to run away in the middle of a video shoot and leave the band. From what I can recall, anyway. Since then, Sugababes have had a plethora of hits, and more importantly, a complete change in line-up. Siobhan was replaced by Heidi, when Mutya upped sticks, we got Amelle. And finally, when Keisha, the one remaining beacon of the original band, decided that she could no longer continue with the group, we got that bird who did okay at Eurovision last year. Or Jade, if you will.

So, this week, original ‘Babe Mutya Buena decided to file a claim for the band’s name. Ooh-er missus. She argued that as part of the original line-up, it’s her right to have the name, and potentially even release material under it. Which would leave the current line-up of replacements unable to call themselves Sugababes, a midly tickling prospect at any length.

This isn’t the first time that bands have had members replaced. I can’t even fathom the amount of musicians who played alongside Frankie Valli as part of the Four Seasons. It seems to be part of our postmodern world. Nothing is original, everything can be replaced, and culture is just constantly recycled. At the end of the day, if it sells, isn’t that the most important thing?

Before I get myself into a hyper-critical rant about consumerism in modern society (maybe I’ll save that one for another time? =P), I do think that Mutya’s stand against the Sugababes (which admittedly can’t technically be defined as Sugababes anymore) shows something important: You can’t just carry a band on to make more money. The band have really run their course, peaking at Change (an album I would thoroughly recommend to any pop music fan), and I’m sure that any citizen with functioning ears will realise that ‘Wear My Kiss’ really is a load of old shit. So Mutya, may you succeed. And stop this horrific attempt at pop music before it gets any worse, and the current ‘Sugababes’ get completely replaced by the struggling members of One True Voice. Heaven forbid.

Twitter the Devil You Know

As part of this blog-writing process, we were advised that a good way to raise publicity for your posts is through the new medium of Twitter. Now, I can’t say I’m exactly a fan of blog-writing itself, but I feel like whatever anger I may feel towards it, it does not compare to my Twitter Rage.

You may not agree, but I find it hard to regard blogs as anything more than the zealous ramblings for the self-indulgent. I completely understand if no-one reads this, for what value does my opinion actually hold? Very little, I think.

Twitter, however, is a step forwards in the new-age revelation that we are the centre of our own universe. With an ethos of posting little snippets of the mundane aspects of your life throughout the day, it calls into question as to who actually cares…

An apparent ‘highlight’ of Twitter is the ability to get Tweets from your favourite celebrity or public figure. Which is just celebrity obsession taken to the next, and mildly frightening, stage. No matter how much in love with David Mitchell I am, it’s really not my top priority to find out when he’s filming his next show.

Okay, I may only be a Twitter newbie, and perhaps within weeks I’ll be writing a sterling retraction. But until then, I’ll be cringing as I press the ‘publish’ button on everything I write.